Vitality London 10,000

It's that time of the year again. Definitely my favourite race of the year so far and also somewhat of a bogey race in terms of trying to get a PB.

In previous years I've planned, not really trained fully, and failed (rightly so) to get a PB in London, or get near a sub 1 hour 10k which is something I have desperately craved.
Obviously I've not craved it quite enough as my training, if I start it, always seems to falter weeks before race day.

This year was slightly different as I started training late which meant I managed to get in a lot of training closer to race day before the usual pattern of getting caught up in life and putting training in the back of my mind.

A week before we set off on our holiday, I was in full training mode, hitting a 10k in training that led me to sign up for a 10k race in Blackpool the week after and I was so glad that I did. Getting under an hour, almost under 59 minutes (probably would have been 58 if not for traffic at the start) did wonders for my confidence leading up to London.

Training didn't really restart after the week away due to one reason or another (it was a tiring week, driving over 1000 miles and not really sleeping due to F and growth spurts!) but after a couple of hard but doable runs in the week leading up to London, I was still confident of under an hour.

Then the day arrived, no pre race nerves. This may be a turning point, or it could have been because I was too busy praying for rain because... heat, oh the heat and humidity.

Not just a Flash in the pan - Photo courtesy of Dana V-T

So I left my friends who I persuaded to join me, only to be put into different starting pens, and joined my wave.
The route was to be as good as always, a beautiful tour of London and some of it's finest attractions but on one of it's most humid of days. With heat unfortunately comes problems and I passed a few unlucky runners being tended to by our lovely NHS paramedics - I do hope the runners are okay and have made a full recovery.
Despite the heat, and being slowed down by a Police car crossing the track, I peeked at my watch to check my pace and I was hovering around 9:30/mile which was starting to feel hard in the energy sapping humidity.
Onwards I plodded, following an older gentlemen getting a lot of wonderful crowd support for him and the charity he was supporting (which now escapes me, an orange vest I think...Parkinsons?) along Birdcage Walk.

Counting down the metres (800m) but feeling my legs just not getting the energy (600m) they needed to pick up the pace. Looking out for our supporters, I dug deep (400m) to gradually find the next gear (200m) and as we hit the right turn onto Spur Road (100m), Buckingham Palace, in all it's glory, was completely ignored and instead I was focussed on some kind of an attempt at a sprint finish.
I heard someone shout my name from my right, spotted our supporters and gave them a wave as I hit the last few metres and crossed the finish.

Photo courtesy of Dana V-T

Over the line in 59:53 - under an hour! Just, yes, but it counts and considering the heat I am super happy.

Two 10ks, both under an hour, achievement for 2017 completed. Time to level up and aim for sub 59...

The 3 Amigos - Photo courtesy of Dana V-T